Tag: Jessica Faust

I said in an earlier post that I spent most of my time early in this writing life researching agents and the publishing industry because I figured I already knew how to write… a couple of rejections bashed that misconception on the head fairly darn quick. A journalism career does not a creative writer make…

But I’m now getting to the very pointy end of feeling His Brand Of Beautiful is ‘finished’ (or at least at the point where I’m game to query it again — about another month) and my thoughts have turned back to publishing. The reason I think I’m close to finished is, the book isn’t talking to me about plot anymore. For 12 months or more I’ve been thinking about plot points and scenes in my head night after night, or when I’m out walking or pushing the pram. Anytime where there’s been some type of peace and quiet. But since early July, that ‘voice’ has stopped. It’s like my head figures I have it all down and it can relax. Now it’s a case of polish, polish, polish, edit, revise; rather than plot, plot, plot, write, write, write.

It’s interesting to me how much as a would-be writer you hear about an author’s voice. Right now, I’m looking at agents’ ‘voices’ in the hope I can find one who feels like a good fit for me… and who I shall do my best to impress while trying not to get my hopes up!

They had a great blog that stopped in April. It was written almost solely by Jessica Faust. I think she is an agent with a voice that really appeals to me. I always found her blog tone positive, even if she was talking about negative people or negative topics. She sounds like she’d be good fun to know.

There was a great article in the last Hearts Talk newsletter from RWA with information about royalties and advances from publishers and the main thing that came out of it for me was that it seemed those publishers paying better dollars were ones less likely to accept a submission from a non-represented author. Particularly if you make that non-represented & previously unpublished author (which hopefully I won’t always be). Stay positive. Stay positive!

I don’t mind the idea of submitting to publishers alone, but I think I’m on the side that if I can get to the point of attracting an agent, I will have far better professional guidance and expertise on this writing route I so want to travel.

In the meantime as Jenny Crusie would say: don’t worry about it and just write a great book.